Proverbial

Träsel (.br) makes a good point, but I think he misses an even larger problem about politics coverage in all of Brazil’s press right now. Yes, editors and reporters should show a little more backbone, but this is not due to productive processes or political agendas. What we’re seeing is just another symptom of our [...]

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A group of state congressmen and representatives from the Brazilian Press Association, the National Newspaper Association and the National Students’ Union, gathered today at downtown Rio de Janeiro to rally in favor of freedom of speech (.br). According to the president of the Lawyers’ Order of Brazil, Wadih Damuz, it was an act “in defense [...]

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I still don’t know what to make of it, and curse myself for not having a video-capable cellphone at hand. Last monday night, walking away from Via Funchal in search of a cab after the My Chemical Romance concert, in São Paulo, I passed by various street vendors selling water, soda and other liquids. All [...]

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Once again, in the name of protecting us from the horrors of racism, apology to crime or the incitement of violence, Brazil’s diligent judges censored perfectly valid discourse. As much as this sort of thing pisses me off, though, I applaud that these ridiculous laws keep being enforced.

A couple of weeks ago, PROCON (the country’s [...]

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And the year is off to a great start in Brazil. For starters, after Congress brought down the ridiculous 0,38% CPMF tax (something like Provisory Contribution on Financial Transactions), the government decided to recover the R$ 40 billion (~U$ 22.7 bil) by, you guessed it, increasing taxes.
Brazil will trim outlays by 20 billion [...]

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Somebody please schedule a meeting between Lula and president Sarkozy, to try and make him understand how this (.br) is a terrible idea:
The administration will send to Congress a project that ratifies a decision by the ILO (International Labour Organization) which makes it harder to fire workers without just cause. The proposal’s idea is to [...]

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Next time you hear a Brazilian complaining about market inequality among men and women, tell them to tell it to the Senate, that just approved a maternity leave (.br) of six months. Granted, it still has to go through the Chamber and the President, but there seems to be no reason to think it’ll fare [...]

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As Träsel notes (.br), if you search Google for “national shame” in Portuguese, the first result you get is the link for the Senate*. Which just makes me wonder how long it’ll take before something like this makes its way to Congress.
A Polish paper has reported that a googlebomber (”23 years old Marek W. from [...]

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Well, since Bruce Sterling brought up the billboard ban in São Paulo again, I guess it’s okay for me to link to this transcript of NPR’s On The Media segment on it, a couple of months ago. After all, I had a hand in it, since their producer Jamison York got in touch with me [...]

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Opens the fridge to serve her a glass of water and makes a bold comment about a piece of butter, which he takes in one of his hands, and about Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider’s movie; Beth transpires. She is taken by excitement, nipples swollen; the mouth agape. There’s an almost imperceptible muscle movement at [...]

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